


cd

by Carbon65



Series: Repository [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce Wayne is Batman, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Canon Disabled Character, Gen, Graduate School, House Hunting, Moving, computer programing, finding a new place sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 11:49:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18964648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon65/pseuds/Carbon65
Summary: “I’m going to move out,” she repeats.Her dad frowns. “You know you’re welcome here as long as you live. Sarah and I are happy to have you.”That’s a lie, and they both know it.Finding a new place is hard. Finding a new place in Gotham that's accessible, affordable, and her father will approve of? Harder still. Making sure she has a not-murder buddy to get her there? Ugh. Bruce Wayne is a sub-optimal house-hunting buddy.





	cd

**Author's Note:**

> Set around the same time (but slightly before) Cron Job.
> 
> Warnings: Ableism; Guns and Firearms

>   
>  The `cd` command, also known as `chdir` (change directory), is a command-line OS shell command used to change the current working directory...
> 
> `cd` by itself or `cd ~` will always put you in your home directory.  
> 

[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cd_\(command\))

There are so many things Barbara misses about BEFORE. Her apartment is definitely one of them. She used to share a sunny two-bedroom with off street parking in a… not nicer, but definitely livable part of Gotham. It was a twenty minute bike ride from the University through mostly safe neighborhoods, a two block walk from the grocery store. The only problem, and really, it was just a minor one these days, was the flight of stairs up to the main room. She knows she can’t go back there, but… 

“I have to move out.”

Her dad glances up from the newspaper where he’s carefully reviewing the crime statistics in Gotham. She’s not sure why he still does it, it’s all on the internet. But, he’s a fan of making scrapbooks. Like, to the point that she’d seen him eyeing the creative memories aisle at Michaels with a little bit too much enthusiasm that time she dragged him with her to go get paint for some high school project or another. Not that she’d care if her dad went full blown die-cuts and stickers. He’s an adult with disposable income and a little bit of time and he needs things that make him happy. It’s more that given his not entirely healthy relationship with masculinity and public perceptions around him, he’d probably make _her_ go do all his shopping for him. That, she’s not sure how she’d ever explain the inevitable batman confetti to… anyone.

“Sorry, Barbara?”

“I’m going to move out,” she repeats.

Her dad frowns. “You know you’re welcome here as long as you live. Sarah and I are happy to have you.” 

That’s a lie, and they both know it. For one thing, Sarah spends more and more time in New York these days. She wonders how much is her father, how much is Sarah, and how much is the strain she put on their marriage. Jim Gordon wasn’t easy to be married to before his adult daughter moved back in with him. Any woman who takes up Jim Gordon needs to know that he is married to his job, and Gotham will always be his first love. Barbara long ago accepted her place somewhere in a distant second or third. Probably second. She’s survived both her father’s marriages, which probably says something. Of course, she’s never tried to compete with the city, either, which might have helped their relationship. 

Besides, whether or not she’s impinging on Jim Gordon and Sarah Essen’s sex life (which, eww, she doesn’t want to think about), she’s getting tired of living with her dad. She has a curfew, damn it, and not just the city wide one that gets imposed every few months. Her wheelchair scrapes the doors in the parts of the house where she goes, and there are plenty where she’s stopped bothering because she can’t quite get through. And, the only food in the fridge is designed to be “heart healthy” which is good for her dad, but Barbara inherited her mother’s freakishly low blood pressure and good cholesterol and she could use a bit more salt in her diet. But, most importantly, she misses her space and her routines and her life. Some things will never be the same, but that doesn’t mean she can’t try to build something new where she is.

“I take it you’re telling me because you found a place?” 

“Ummm...”

Finding a place in Gotham is already hard. It has to be in the right neighborhood because this is Gotham and she studies crime statistics. And, maybe she should feel guilty about having the privilege to be able to say she wants to live in a low crime neighborhood, but she needs a low crime neighborhood. It needs to be at least moderately accessible overall. Because while she can - in theory - drive, in practice, she lacks motivation and a car. The Wayne Foundation has been behind local efforts to improve public transit, and Gotham’s public transit system is good enough she doesn’t need a car if she’s near the university and on the right bus routes. (The metro is supposed to be exceptional but after a visit to New York where she got stuck in a subway station and had to ride back uptown five stops, she’s a bit wary.) 

Then, there's the apartment itself. Accessible, preferably ground floor. She’s going to need a roommate, so two bedroom two bath. She’s not in love with having a roommate, but she’s also pragmatic enough to know that her having one will make everyone feel more comfortable. She’s seen the look of relief on doctor’s faces when she said she wasn’t going to live alone. It’s a little bit insulting. She can do things on her own. She can take care of herself just fine. But, if she has to share her apartment with someone, she at least wants her own bathroom. For the sake of their relationship and her sanity.

It’s hard enough to find a place in Gotham with the requisite two bedrooms and two bathrooms. At least not on a grad students salary. (Grad students are criminally underpaid, but that’s a universal problem. At least Eric gives her 12 months instead of the nine many of her colleagues get.) She knows she’ll pay more than a third of her salary in rent, but 2.5 weighs heavily. She spends hours on Craigslist, just looking. 

When she finds a place that might, theoretically work, there’s the issue of access. Or the depressing lack thereof. Ones that advertised but don’t deliver. Gotham’s Art Deco architecture is beautiful, but a lot of the buildings were built pre ADA and the elevators are awful when they’re present at all. She supposed you don’t really need an elevator in a five story building, but it sure as hell makes it hard for her to live there. Then there are the buildings with doorways that aren’t wide enough, the buildings without automatic buttons, the buildings where the kitchen needs a retrofit that no landlord will make.

To make matters worse, her dad has decided to “take more of an interest in his daughters life”. Given the eye rolling he’d said it with, she suspects the therapist he and Sarah are seeing in an attempt to repair their marriage might have made the suggestion. In her father’s case for this house hunt, an “interest” has involved nixing seven otherwise promising places: a former meth den, a suspected brothel, what may be a front for one of the local mafias, and four complexes with a history of noise complaints. It’s too bad; the mobsters know their way around a wheelchair accessible bathroom and the countertops had been granite. 

Her father’s other major contribution to house hunting is the demand that she take someone with her to all her showings. She probably would have anyway, but her dad makes a point to make sure that someone can come with her. This has meant scheduling half of them around both their jobs. When that’s not possible, he demands she take other people.  
...Which has sort of become a problem. Sarah is still in New York. And, most of her friends from college have gone, and the ones who haven’t left aren’t sure how to relate to her anymore. It’s like they think she’s a different person. …she wonders if hiding her disability were an option is she would go out of her way to do it for her friends. But, it doesn’t matter here because that’s not an option. 

For some appointments, she gets Abby to come. (“From High school? Weird Abby? With the pink hair?” “Yes, ‘Weird Abby’ with the pink hair. Except it’s green this week.”) They’re both looking for apartments, so it kind of works. Their requirements are a little bit different, but the search is the same. And, having someone along is probably good for both of them. If she thought it would work, Barbara might just propose that she and Abby move in together. She could probably live with Abby. They’d talked about it at one point. But, Abby wants a place shorter term because she thinks she might move in with her girlfriend, Timi, once Timi graduates. And, Barbara doesn’t think that would be a problem either. At least not on her end. But, she can also understand why someone wouldn’t want to live in a home with a firearm. Even though she’s a safe gun owner and she recertifies every six months at the police range and keeps her guns locked up when she’s not carrying them, Barbara can understand. It took her a long time to get back to a point where she can have a gun in her apartment and not feel the cold sweat creep down her spine. But, there’s something about not having one that scares her, too. Too many years of nightlife, maybe. Or too many as a cop’s daughter.

When Abby isn’t available, she asks Dick. He’s hard to house hunt with because Dick has weird tastes. He’s both intensely interested in the house and yet also entirely dismissive. Bathroom tiling seems to fascinate him, and he’s remarked on more than one occasion about the fact that he wants to live in a home where the bathroom tile was hand laid. (Barbara isn’t sure how he knows, but he does.) He’s also obsessive about counting fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors. But, he’s really bad at checking if the pipes work, whether the stove actually turns on, and if the seal on the refrigerator is good. (Abby has a thing for good refrigerator seals.)

But, of course, the process can’t be easy. And so, there are times when neither Dick, nor Abby, nor her dad nor Sarah are available for house hunting. And, it’s so damn tempting to go alone. Except that Dick has the same paranoia that her father has, and so she ends up looking with other members of the no-so-teen Titans. Garth has a thing for windows: he likes wide south facing ones. Roy Harper thinks you need a big living room to have friends over. Kori seconded both suggestions, but also mentioned both a walk in closet and one of those hotel bolt locks. Barbara thinks Kori might be on to something there.

* * *

There comes a day when _no one_ is available. Barbara is getting tired of looking. She’s been hunting for a place for almost four months with no success. The former meth lab is starting to look really attractive right now, despite the fact that she knows it will probably kill her. At least it would kill her and a roommate for less than two and a half times their combined pre-tax income with a one-month security deposit. 

She’s got a day with three appointments and no one can make them. Abby and Timi are in Atlanta, meeting the parents. Sarah is still in New York. Her dad is working the kind of massive case that means he’s spending fifteen hour days at the station and maybe sleeping there if no one sends him home. Half of Arkham is out right now, and he doesn’t have bandwidth to go with her. Given his perhaps well earned fear about her safety when there were villians in the city and the way her prolonged search is moving her across the river to the Narrows, she understands his anxiety. She is less understanding of his threat to send a police officer with her. More specifically, a non-Dick Grayson officer. Because Dick bails on her due to training-related reasons. And then scrambles to find a replacement. As far as she knows, the Titans are off in San Francisco. There might be robots involved. And she swears, she’s going to cancel before she has to whip out a tape measure and start repeating the word, “thirty two inches” in front of her co-workers. 

Just as she’s about to cancel, she gets a text.

* * *

     **Dick** (1:15 pm)
I found someone!
     **Barbara** (1:17 pm)
Who?
     **Barbara** (2:15 pm)
Dick, who?
     **Barbara** (3:25 pm)
Grayson?

She doesn’t ever actually get an answer out of him. She wonders if he’s going to send Superman. She met Superman once when she was on patrol, and he seemed like a decent guy. Someone who would be nice to you as a teenager in that authority figure who make you feel safe had has healthy boundaries without being your parent kind of way. (The one who you respect and will probably steer your right when you’re pissed off at your dad and need someone to be the voice of reason and say, dying your hair blue is probably harmless but it will be expensive and hard to maintain. And, it's probably fair that he wants you to get it dyed professionally the first time. So maybe you could do it if you paid for it yourself. ...For the record, blue hair _was_ expensive and made her look like weirdly edgy, but it had been worth every penny of the babysitting money 14 year old Barbara had been able to use to make it happen.) As an adult, she sort of wants to go out for drinks with Superman’s civilian identity because she really wants to know how he (a) manages to hide that he’s fucking superman, (b) what he does when he’s not Superman, and (c) what he does now that telephone booths aren’t a thing anymore. 

At exactly 4:27 pm, around the time she was supposed to meet Dick, she gets a text from an unknown number, summoning her outside. She collects the odd detritus from her day that’s leaving with her, says goodbye to Ed who is her new officemate, and heads down to meet…

Bruce Wayne is standing outside her building, leaning against a bright candy red sports car with smooth lines and soft edges and a mysterious feminine energy. She doesn’t know cars, but it’s probably a Porsche. Italians make female cars. They probably can’t help it.

He opens the door for her. “Do you have the addresses?” 

His voice is light and half an octave higher than what she’s heard casually around the manor the few times she was over with Dick as Barbara during that fraught six month period in college where she had a fierce crush on Dick Grayson and thought he might have actually be interested in her. (For the record, she might still be nursing a crush on Dick Grayson, but she also knows the man. She’s not sure if that makes it better… or worse.) It’s also at least an octave higher than Batman’s gravely tones. 

“Bruce?”

“Yeah?”

“Ummm…” 

She doesn’t know what to do with this. Batgirl knows - knew - The Batman. She’s known his secret identity since she was 17, and they’d worked together in the field. She’s one of the few now civilians in Gotham who can say they’ve seen the inside of the Batcave and Batman’s face under his cowl.  
But, this is Bruce and not The Batman. Bruce Wayne™ is so impossibly not the Batman that she’s not sure what to do with this. Barbara Gordon knows Bruce Wayne as the guardian of her friend, Dick Grayson. But, Bruce was rarely home when Barbara was there, or Dick intentionally steered them apart in the big echoing house, and so, yeah. This is weird.

“Dick’s sorry he couldn’t make it. If it makes you feel better, I think I was his last choice. But, here I am!”

“Here you are?” She agrees, transfering into the car so she can disassemble her chair. To his credit, Bruce stows it efficiently, and within minutes, they’re tearing away from GSU. 

They chatter quietly about light social matters: traffic, the weather, this year’s social circuit that they’re both required to attend at various points, and a ten minute discussion of the social and cultural implications of pockets. There are plenty of topics that hang under the surface, waiting to ensnare them, but they manage to navigate their way through.

As they get closer, Bruce asks what she needs from him. “Am I just supposed to be intimidating, or do I have an actual role?”

No one has asked her this before. Everyone else has been to an apartment showing for a second hand place they found on Craigslist. Or, a something. But, Bruce… Bruce clearly hasn’t. (Also, she doesn’t think Superman would ask this question.) She wonders how Bruce gets his apartments. He probably has Someone™ who does that for him. A real estate specialist or something. 

“You, ummm, you stand there are make sure I don’t get murdered. Maybe remind me to check things like the stove and the power bill and the deposit.” Because, seriously, what _does_ you non-murder buddy do?

“Right. No Murder. Stove. Deposit.” Bruce looks like he’s committing the list to memory and his phone directs him to the first address.

They’re in a lower rent neighborhood just on this side of gentrified enough for safety. The kind of place where the apartments are shitty, but you pay for the quality of the neighborhood to keep you safer. It’s not Crime Alley or the Narrows, not a place where the monsters live on every corner. It’s close enough to have that nervous thrill, but far enough that she thinks once she gets the hang of the neighborhood, it will be okay. (As long as no one tells her dad that she goes out alone after dark. Please, no one tell her dad that she goes out alone after dark. Although she’s not sure how she’s supposed to get groceries in February if she’s doesn’t go out after dark.)

Bruce circles the block, before giving up and parking... somewhere. It's probably legal. She didn’t check. They walk together to the address. 

The building is a nondescript low rise from the middle of the last century: five stories with four apartments to a floor. There’s no step at the front, so that’s already a bonus. Five of the “accessible” places she’s seen have had a one or two steps to get into the front door. The worst was a brownstone with six (6!) steps and no ramp. The previous tenant had used a cane and had no complaints.

The meet a tired looking building manager in the lobby. She’s clearly not sure what to make of the duo in front of her. But, she’s either too tired or too Gotham-jaded to do more than shake herself slightly when Bruce introduces himself as, well, Bruce. Anyway, he’s a lot more interesting to watch as they go through the process.

They take a creaking elevator that you shut with a gate up to a second floor apartment. The landing outside 2C smells like day-old broccoli. It is not an appetizing smell. The manager unlocks the door, and Barbara is pleased to see she can get through. Always a bonus.

Although once inside, the apartment is fully carpeted and smells like cat pee. Bruce’s face goes from that Bruce Wayne Of Gotham Smile™ to something a little bit… flatter. He looks around, trying to see if he can find the cats.

The manager walks them through the apartment, showing off the features with machine gun rapidity and precision. Yes there are two bedrooms: the master in front and a smaller room in the back next to the bathroom. No, only one. Yes, she can install bars if she needs to, but she’s responsible for fixing or paying for any damage to the walls of the apartment when she moves out. 

Bruce jumps in, asking something about mobility equipment qualifying, and the lady just shrugs. If it affects the re-rentability of the property then the tenant is liable for the damage. Barbara thinks that’s the technical term: re-rentability. If it isn’t, she’s going to add it to one of her papers and make it a Thing. Like Fetch, but peer-reviewed.

The kitchen is suboptimal as well. There’s a dishwasher (pro), but the fridge is stacked rather than side-by-side, meaning that she’ll have to be careful what goes in the freezer. The stove is also definitely built for someone standing, and it will either need to be replaced (probably at her expense) or she’ll have to work around it.

Bruce looks around, and asks about the cable outlet (available but not provided), the heating (including), electric (not included) and water (included). He asks about the local crime rate (low enough, Barbara checked) and when the last time there was an attack in this area. The building manager flushes and murmurs something about this being Gotham. Bruce frowns.

They end with financial details and a hand shake. It’s Gotham, so it’s a one-month rent a security deposit plus first and last month’s rents are due at signing; the contract can be terminated with one month’s notice. The parent company has a policy against subleasing, so Barbara’s… roommate? Would need to come sign the lease. The unit is available immediately, and the month could be prorated. Barbara smiles and nods, and says she’ll think about it. 

Bruce is quiet until they get in the car. He has a slight frown on his face as they drive to the next address, eight blocks away across the river. It’s closer to the Narrows, not quite truly in the neighborhood, but definitely closer than her dad would be comfortable. Closer than Barbara’s research says she should live if she wants a long, prosperous life. Although, in all fairness, if she’d wanted a long and prosperous life, she should have chosen a career path that didn’t involve graduate school. She’s thankfully not taking on any more student loan debt, but balancing the cost of living plus the cost of being disabled on a grad student’s salary is… she’s good at math, okay, but she’s also carrying a hefty balance on her credit card right now because her take-home pay doesn’t cover the cost of the chronic emergency that is her life.

The building here is slightly newer, but it feels cramped and more sterile. It’s a high rise in a small complex, stark against the blue-grey Gotham sky. There’s something that feels off about the complex, like it doesn’t belong here. Maybe it’s the remnant of someone’s old re-development project that failed.

She, Bruce, and the property manager go through the same song and dance about taking a too-cramped elevator up to see the apartment, about getting through the door, about the outlets. There’s one and a half bathrooms in this apartment: a full bath that she can just get her chair into and a powder room she has no hope of entering. A one-to-one toilet-to-person ratio is a far better person to toilet ratio than other places she’s heard about. (She saw one advertisement with a one-to-six toilet to person ratio. That is too few toilets per person for her taste or bladder.) It’s all mostly well and good until she tries to get into the kitchen and… can’t. The galley is too narrow to fit her chair. And, short of a major remodel that neither she nor the rental company can pay for, she won’t even be able to get to the fridge.

It’s interesting to watch Bruce’s face as he comes to the same realization. The property manager looks embarrassed, but doesn’t offer solutions. Bruce goes through a very quick series of controlled eyebrow movements, ones she’s seen Dick’s face morph through on a slightly larger scale. They telegraph distress, disappointment, confusion, and resignation. 

They end with financial details and a hand shake. It’s Gotham, so it’s a one-month rent a security deposit plus first and last month’s rents are due at signing; the contract can be terminated with one month’s notice. The parent company has a policy against subleasing, so Barbara’s… roommate? Would need to come sign the lease. The unit is available immediately, and the month could be prorated. Barbara smiles and nods, and says she’ll think about it. 

Bruce manages to make it back to the car before he loses his composure. “What was that?”

She sighs and hands him a wheel. “An accessible Gotham apartment.”

“That was a shithole,” Bruce decides, climbing into the driver’s seat. “Why were you looking at a shit hole?”

“Because it had two bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms - which is close to the right toilet to potential human numbers - and it’s only sixteen hundred a month, eight hundred with a roommate. I can make eight hundred a month work. Probably.”

Bruce considers for a moment. She’s not entirely sure if he has a concept of how much or how little $800 is to the average person. Or what her monthly income is. She’s pretty sure, based on Dick’s stories, that Bruce has spent four times that on single nights in hotel rooms. He also lives and funds Batman off of stock returns from WE and general inherited wealth. The concept of money as a finite resource may not occur to Bruce Wayne.

“Do you just… we could find somewhere nicer,” he suggests. 

“Yes, but not accessible and less than $800 a month with a roommate,” she argues. “I know, I’ve been looking since July.”

“I could buy you a place,” Bruce offers, like he’s the goddamn Oprah Winfrey of Gotham real estate for graduate students. (You get an apartment and you get an apartment, everyone gets an apartment! Although given the discussion around Salt Lake’s Housing First initiatives, the Martha Wayne foundation might actually be considering it.)

“What? No!” She’s maybe too quick with this answer, but her pride is at stake. It’s not that she wont accept gifts. If Bruce Wayne wants to buy her lunch or coffee, she’s happy to accept. Hell, she’d take an expensive dinner from him. In college, she might have taken some money for a road trip, if she had been the kind of college student who took road trips for Spring Break. There’s at least three orders of magnitude difference between a very expensive dinner an an apartment. “No, Bruce, I don’t want you to buy me an apartment. You’re here to make sure I don’t get raped, murdered, and left in a ditch somewhere. And that there is a carbon monoxide detector.” 

“I… I see.” Bruce looks slightly confused. “I didn’t think there were many ditches in Gotham to drop bodies in. It’s more of a harbor sort of town.”

“This…” she turns to him. “You…”

Someone knocks on their window. “Move it or I’m calling the cops. This is a 30 minute zone.”  
The pull back out into traffic.

“If i'm not allowed to buy you an apartment, can I ask you to watch one of mine?”

“No,” she scowls. “I don’t want you to personally solve my housing problems.” 

“...At least tell me what you’re looking for,” Bruce insists. “I can see if I know anyone.”

“Accessible, and like actually accessible, not this ‘complies with the ADA and then you can’t get into the kitchen’ bullshit. I want my own room and preferably one, but I guess no more than two roommates. No less than one toilet per two people. Close enough to the university that I can commute by bus, and probably second most importantly, in budget.”

“That’s should… that should be easy to find, right? What’s your budget?”

“I’m already topping out, that place was $200 more than I want to spend.”

“That was…”

“Bruce, I make $30K a year before taxes. That’s well paid for my profession. So, yeah, that was a lot of rent.”

Bruce is dumbfounded. 

There’s silence as they drive closer to the Narrows, toward the third appointment of the day. This is a roommate situation, which she hasn’t mentioned to Bruce. She’d be moving into an apartment that’s already occupied. It’s exactly the kind of thing her father had cautioned against. 

Bruce starts to frown as the GPS directs them further. “I don’t like this neighborhood.”

“You don’t like neighborhoods, period. No one lives close to your compound. Or in your tower. Or by your beach house. You just don’t like people.”

“I don’t like neighborhoods for me,” Bruce agrees. “But I don’t like this neighborhood for anyone. Batman hangs out here a lot.”

“Yeah… well… I like not being homeless or living with my dad.” 

Bruce snorts and mutters something about very nice condos by GSU.

They pull up outside the building into what again, may or may not be a legal parking spot. 

“Wait, Barbara, if I’m here to prevent you from being raped, murdered, and dumped in the harbor, what do you want me to do if someone tries?”

It’s her turn to be dumbfounded. “I umm… I uh… Abby has a taser.” 

“Abby? Abby Yu? With the unicorn hoodie and the pink hair?”

How the fuck does Bruce know Abby? Maybe she was in Dick’s class? When Dick was in public school after Gotham prep kicked him out? It had been a Thing. Made all the local gossip pages. 

“Yeah, but it’s purple now.”

Bruce shakes his head and goes to get her wheelchair out of the car for her. He might also pull a taser out of the trunk.

They go up to the building, a very un-Bruce like frown creasing his face. Bruce doesn’t frown. He might get wrinkles.

The take a somewhat more modern, somewhat more spacious elevator up to the third floor. The building has a retro feel that Dick would love, but it still feels contemporary. Barbara’s pretty sure that, despite the proximity to the Narrows, she won’t be able to afford it.

The woman who opens the door to 315 looks the two of them up and down and then lets out what might be a low fuck. “Barbara?”

“Nice to meet you.” Barbara shakes her hand. “And this is my, uh, friend, Bruce.”

“Right. I’m Carly.” She moves aside to open the door and let them in. “And this is the apartment.”

It’s nice for the price range: three bedroom, one bath, an entry hall and a kitchen. For an almost unheard of $750 a month. She wonders what’s wrong with it. 

They got into the kitchen: a side-by-side fridge/freezer, a roll under sink, and a stove top without an oven underneath. A sink she can reach. They settle around the big table, Bruce pulling out a chair for Barbara.

“So, uh, tell em about yourself,” Carly prompts. Ahh, it’s one of those interviews.

“I grew up in Gotham. Lived here most of my life. I’m, like, doing a PhD at GSU now in information science.”

Carly nods for her to continue.

“I umm, I’m a non smoker, drink moderately. I read a lot in my free time. Umm… I’m single, no kids, no pets. Up to date on all my vaccines.”

Carly nods again, but grins this time. She’s starting to look like a bobble head. “Cool. I’m a teacher at Sacred Heart. Sixth grade english.”

Barbara winces, but because sixth grade, and because she knows the face Bruce is making. It’s the one he makes whenever anything Jason related comes up. Jay had done his remedial year of eighth grade at Sacred Heart, after it became apparent that he hadn’t learned jackshit the year before. Alfred thought the structure of parochial would be good for him. Bruce just wanted him out of the public schools in the Narrows where he’d maybe partially attended seventh grade. Jason hadn’t wanted to leave home. 

Carly interprets her expression for the first but not the second. “I like it, they’re old enough to be people. I don’t have to worry about them trying to eat paste. They already know their ABCs, but they’re still young enough that they haven’t quite figured out how to be cool. They’re awesome.”

“I… I see.” Barbara feels the same polite confusion she suspect people have when she explains her job.

“Don’t smoke, drink socially. My partner is in Albany, and comes down twice a month.”

“And your other roommate?”

“Yeah, Carleigh is sorry she couldn’t make it. She’s a manager at Carivagio’s, and one of the bartenders called in with a sick kid.”

Bruce glances over, unable to keep his mouth shut. “How does that work, you working at school and her working nights?”

Carly shrugs. “It’s fine. We’re respectful, ya know? We have our own rooms, we’re quiet in the bathroom. If she’s going to be in real late, we figure things out with the shower. But, it’s not a problem.”

Bruce nods, settling back. He will deny it, but that was such a dad question. 

“So, umm… room?” Carly asks.

“Room.” Barbara agrees, following the other woman across the apartment.

“This is the bathroom,” Carly pauses to open a door at the end of the hall.

“Do you mind if I…?”

“Go ahead!”

It’s another one of those old tiled bathrooms that Dick likes so much. Except there’s space around the toilet. And grab bars on the walls. And a modern shower with a bench built in. 

“We use shower caddies right now. And, umm, you’d get a drawer,” Carly points to a plastic chest of drawers. “We share the hair dryer, if you need it.”  
She grins.

“So, this is, umm, Sami’s room.” Carly leads her toward the door at the other end of the hall. “She, umm, it’s complicated? But this is the room you’d have.”

The room is big and spacious. The floor is hardwood, smooth and easy to roll over. Sami doesn’t have any rugs, either. There’s a tall window with a wide over the radiator, and what may be a normal sized closet along the wall.

“Can I?” Barbara points.

Carly hesitates. “She doesn’t…”

“Okay,” Barbara agrees.

Bruce, still trailing after like some sort of confused guard dog, frowns. Barbara gets not wanting your closet shown off. It’s where you hide all your dark secrets when you’re staging a room.

“So, umm, the rent is $750 a month. We pay into a joint account and then, there’s an auto transfer. So, it’s due into that account on the second and then goes out on the fourth. Security deposit is one month, due when you sign the lease. We’ve got a pretty standard lease.”

“I uh…” Barbara braces herself for this to go badly, but she needs to ask. “I have a concealed carry permit.”

Carly takes a step back. Bruce frowns. She wonders if he knows that Dick does too. He doesn’t do guns as Nightwing, but off duty as Dick Grayson? Dick’s got the permit, but she doesn’t think he owns a gun right now. Or, he might… she hasn’t actually been to his place in Bludhaven because it’s an inaccessible shithole, and not just a shit hole mascarding as being accessible.

“Not right now!” She lifts up her arm to show her t-shirt and jeans off. Her chair is tight to her body, and even though she could and has carried a gun on her person, she doesn’t. “But, umm, I have one. A pistol. It lives in a gun safe. Unloaded, of course, and locked. With the bullets somewhere else. And, I re-cert every year with my dad. But, umm… yeah.”

“That’s…” Carly looks flummoxed. “Umm….”

“I know,” Barbara admits. “I know.”

“I have to ask Carleigh. And the Majumdars.”

“I umm, I understand?”

Carly nods, and shuffles her feel. 

“When’s the apartment available?” Thank god for Bruce. 

“September.”

Barbara frowns. She really doesn’t want another six weeks with her dad, but if she says no, there might be another six weeks of looking. She wants a home. “That’s umm… that’s okay.” 

Carly nods. 

“How long is the lease?” Bruce asks, reading something off his phone. 

“So, umm, that’s the catch. Sami’s parents are talking about selling the place. So, umm, we’ve got another five months, but then… I’m not sure.”

“Imagine a parental figure caring enough to buy an apartment.” Bruce’s tone is dry.

Barbara really wants to run over his foot, but she’s too far away.

“And, umm, of course there’s the location.”

“Of course. This is Blue Wisp territory?”

Carly nods. “And we’re close enough to the botanical gardens that sometimes we see Poison Ivy at the hardware store. …Well, we once saw a redhead buying a couple of tons of potting soil at the hardware store.”

“And… Penguin last year?”

Carly shrugs. “We’ve been okay so far.”

“So far,” Bruce grunts.

“But, Sami also swears she saw the Batman, so…”

Bruce’s face is amazing.

“I’m still interested!” Barbara says, quickly, “but I need to think about it. Can I let you know tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Carly agrees, walking them out. 

In the car, Bruce pouts. “Sami let her parents buy her an apartment.” 

“One, they’re Sami’s parents, and two, she was paying rent.”

“You can pay rent,” Bruce offers. 

She rolls her eyes. “Not the point.”

“I think it would be a good investment.” 

He accelerates back toward her Dad’s house. Dick can blame his bad driving on Bruce.

* * *

It… it ends up working out. Mostly. 

“Damn Gordon, why are these so heavy?” Roy Harper is balancing three “small” boxes of books in his arms. She’s not sure why he needed to carry three. Then again, Dick had just carried two in, so that might be it.

“Because they’re books!” 

Look, yes, it’s part decorating aesthetic, but also… there’s a comfort in books. A promise of stability and utility and a familiar echo of childhood. The books are old friends and they’re promises. 

Harper grunts, and hefts them up, his loose shirt riding up as he does it. 

“Barbara!” Her dad calls from her new room. “I can’t find the screwdriver.”

“Did you check the kitchen?” 

“Why would it be in the kitchen?”

“Why would you need it?”

He’s trying to put her bed together. Oh dear God. Why is her dad trying to put her bed together? Her dad is supposed to be in the kitchen, making sure things are put away. (Mostly, her dad is supposed to be somewhere he can feel helpful without actually making things worse.) Sarah is supposed to help her assemble furniture. She and Barbara - as the only members of the family who can actually follow pictographic instructions - will put it together. Barbara used to do all her flat-pack on her own, but… 

“How’s the bed coming?” Dick demands from the doorway?

Barbara lets her head drop dramatically into her palms. “My dad,” she groans.

Dick makes a face and follows her into the bedroom.

“Uhh, Comish…”

“Right, umm, it looks like you still need a screwdriver and one of those magic wrench thingies.” Her dad somehow manages to not look guilty about the chair he’d assembled with the front legs sticking up. “I’m just going to walk down there and get one.”

“Okay.” Is she a terrible daughter for agreeing too quickly? “That would be great.” 

He comes over so she can kiss him on the cheek like she used to when she was a teenage girl. So she’d watched too many teen movies about daughters with their fathers wrapped around their fingers? Who care, it worked?

“Do you?” She turns to Dick.

“Yo, Harper!”

Roy appears, pulling several Ikea wrenches out of the pocket of his cargo shorts. “I knew these would come in useful.”

Barbara manages not to roll her eyes. She just plops on the floor and pulls the instructions toward her. 

“When you’re done, I need someone to come 

Dick and Roy may be hopeless at reading instructions, but she thinks they can probably lift heavy things and tight screws. Or, Dick can help with furniture assembly. If he’s left unsupervised in the truck… oh God. She’s positive the U-Haul insurance she bought does not cover circus-level acrobatics in the back of the truck. Besides, he turns out to be surprisingly adept at slotting together the pieces of the bed support.

The bed comes together, and Barbara sets up assembling one of the bookshelves while Dick and Roy got and get the mattress from the truck. It’s new, a gift from her dad to celebrate the fact that she’s the fuck out of the house. Also because her old mattress was crap and the doctor said she needed this one to prevent bedsores. And because it feels like a fucking cloud.

Carly leans in the doorway, watching their retreating backsides. “How do I get me one of those?”

“You don’t want one.” Barbara calls. “They’re pains in the ass and smelly. And, they drink all your beer.”

“Love you too, Babs!” Roy calls back.

“He’s got a kid,” Barbara says, more quietly. She pulls over her chair. “So, look, but maybe don’t touch? Lian is cute, but her mom?”

Carly shrugs. “Not really my type, but pretty. Anyway, Carleigh and I just got a call from the Majumdars. Bad news is they sold the place. Good news is the new landlord bought our lease agreement as is.”

“Did they say who?”

“No, just that it was a private investor.”

“Oh, God.” 

“Just thought you might want to know…”  
Barbara lets out a frustrated sound. “Thanks.”

The kitchen is crowded with people that night. Dick and Roy are there, taking their payment for moving in beer and pizza. Abby and Timi are over, as well, giggling and helping Barbara unpack her books. (“Abby? Abby Yu, didn't your hair used to be pink?” “My hair is still pink, Dickhead.”) Her dad hovers, still not entirely sure what to do with himself since he’s been banned from putting together furniture. He’d settled on taking all her plates out of the boxes and washing them. He’s got a dish towel over the shoulder of his light blue polo shirt, and his hands are sudsy. It reminds her of when her dad - her Roger dad - used to wash the dishes after dinner when she was a little girl. It was the one household chore he did consistently. 

Carleigh - her new roommate - rushes into the kitchen a bit out of breath. She grabs a piece of pizza, and then pops herself up onto the counter. “Guys, I… I just saw The Batman. He was like a block over.”

“Get used to it,” Roy mutters. “Old man is everywhere.”

Carly frowns. “I hope that doesn’t bring down the property value. I don’t want the new guy to sell… again.”

Dick looks away suspiciously. Barbara is going to have to dig up Bruce’s number and call him. Or… or she could ask Dick for Alfred’s. She bets Alfred will have at thing to say about Bruce randomly buying apartments. And about Batman terrorizing her roommates. Still, as they talk over pizza and salad and beer, things seem good.

The feeling of wellbeing continues as she settles into her bed that night. Her room is almost all the way unpacked, there are only a few pictures to be hung and Abby and her dad promised to come back tomorrow to help. Her bed is soft, the sheets fresh and clean and lightly scented with lavender. She feels safe and happy here.

She thinks she might be home.

**Author's Note:**

> This is perhaps a love letter to all the places I had which were mine. Oh God, I miss having my own place. But, I guess this is home, for now?
> 
> Questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, or recommendations of better ways to move than taking everything you own on the subway all welcome! Just... come say "hi"?


End file.
